Oracle announced that Tech Mahindra, a leading system integrator for network infrastructure services, and Oracle Communications have partnered to deliver an end-to-end VoLTE-as-a-Managed-Service solution based on Oracle's IMS Core and Signaling products. The partnership, represents the industry's first end-to-end VoLTE solution built on best-of-breed technology. The solution offers operators the ability to achieve a faster time to market with new VoLTE services, increased voice quality and greater network efficiency while significantly reducing cost and complexity.

Differentiating itself from competitors, while offering an enhanced experience to customers, Spanish bank, BBVA, is using Oracle Communications technology to enable customers to open new accounts via their mobile devices in minutes.

The banking industry is under heavy scrutiny to validate and protect customer information. BBVA has chosen a solution with comprehensive security features to enhance efforts to meet EU compliance requirements for confidential documentation and secure management of personal data, as well as standards for authentication, reporting and monitoring. BBVA chose Oracle Communications WebRTC Session Controller and Quobis Sippo WebRTC Application Controller as the foundation for its new platform because the technology is easily configured and integrates directly with the company's existing internal systems.

Srinivas writes in Forbes, "During a typical day, we use a variety of applications that, by virtue of their artificial intelligence, automatically understand our speech and provide near-real-time feedback to support decision-making. Think Siri. But is machine learning, one of a number of AI techniques, ready for clinical applications, specifically to accelerate drug development and/or reduce development costs?

First, some context. Machine learning encompasses a variety of algorithmic techniques that clinical drug developers can use to identify and infer patterns to support enhanced/automated decision-making. One such technique is Natural Language Processing, which can be used to 'read' scientific text and infer its semantic context in order to search and find information more easily..."

Jeremy writes in Forbes, "As companies talk seriously about the workplace role of adaptive intelligence, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and natural language understanding, it's time to talk about the fundamental shift in user experience (UX) these emerging technologies could also bring about.

Our research on emerging technologies reveals three main benefits to developing such a smart UX:

Juergen blogs, "On January 19, 2017, Oracle announced that it signed an agreement to acquire Apiary, which creates the most comprehensive API Integration Cloud by adding the leading API design and governance solution. The proposed transaction is subject to customary closing conditions. Until the transaction closes, each company will continue to operate independently.

Apiary's pioneering APIFlow solution provides the framework and tools for developing application programming interfaces (APIs) that share enterprise services and data and help create modern, cloud-based applications and experiences. APIFlow spans the API creation lifecycle, including design, governance, testing, and documentation, while supporting API Blueprint and OpenAPI industry standards. Apiary has helped companies create hundreds of thousands of APIs and products that their customers and partners love to use..."

Srinivas writes in Forbes, "During a typical day, we use a variety of applications that, by virtue of their artificial intelligence, automatically understand our speech and provide near-real-time feedback to support decision-making. Think Siri. But is machine learning, one of a number of AI techniques, ready for clinical applications, specifically to accelerate drug development and/or reduce development costs?

First, some context. Machine learning encompasses a variety of algorithmic techniques that clinical drug developers can use to identify and infer patterns to support enhanced/automated decision-making. One such technique is Natural Language Processing, which can be used to 'read' scientific text and infer its semantic context in order to search and find information more easily..."

"What are the limits of AI? And how do you go from managing data points to injecting AI in the enterprise?...

AI is mainstream these days. The attention it gets and the feelings it provokes cover the whole gamut: from hands-on technical to business, from social science to pop culture, and from pragmatism to awe and bewilderment. Data and analytics are a prerequisite and an enabler for AI, and the boundaries between the two are getting increasingly blurred..."

"Computational science has come a long way with machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) in just the last year. Leading centers of high-performance computing are making great strides in developing and running ML/DL workloads on their systems. Users and algorithm scientists are continuing to optimize their codes and techniques that run their algorithms, while system architects work out the challenges they still face on various system architectures. At SC16, I had the honor of hosting three of HPC's thought leaders in a panel to get their ideas about the state of Artificial Intelligence (AI), today's challenges with the technology, and where it's going. My guests were Nick Nystrom from Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC), Ivan Rodero from Rutgers University, and Prabhat from NERSC at Berkeley National Laboratory. They answered both questions I put to them and from the audience..."

"Computer-based systems that incorporate AI techniques are projected to have a dramatic impact in health care, helping physicians better diagnose and treat their patients...

Today, we are seeing the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare as it helps us integrate disparate data types to answer complex questions that were previously unknown. According to the recent PwC Health Research Institute's annual report, emerging technologies, including AI, are being deployed in healthcare and have great potential to disrupt in 2017..."

"Learn about three of the most popular machine learning libraries for Python...

You don't have to be a data scientist to be fascinated by the world of machine learning, but a few travel guides might help you navigate the vast universe that also includes big data, artificial intelligence, and deep learning, along with a large dose of statistics and analytics..."

"Flash storage needs array data protection. We run the rule over RAID for flash storage and look at erasure coding, which will become more attractive as drive sizes increase...

It's a fact of life that despite being highly reliable, flash media can go bad.

Drive internals (such as the controller or NAND) can fail, and of course drives have a specific lifetime. Once endurance levels are reached for a particular cell in NAND, then the media is at risk of failing or returning false results..."

"Sony, the Japanese tech company, is the latest to claim the title of 'world's fastest SD card,' which is aimed at high-end photography and video professionals.

Dubbed as SF-G UHS-II SD card, it is aimed at high-end photography and video professionals and boasts read speeds of up to 300 megabytes per second (MB/s) and write speeds of 299 MB/s with devices that support the SD card UHS-II standard, ultimately making it the fastest in the world..."

"Consumers are adopting new payments technologies with unprecedented enthusiasm. Already, over 50% of Europeans surveyed by Visa regularly make payments using a mobile device, and transaction volumes are expected to top $1 trillion by 2020.

The potential for payment technology is almost limitless - so what are the technologies and trends shaping the payments of the future?..."

"Ethernet disk drives were rolled out by Seagate Technology LLC in 2014 with quite a bit of hoopla. Western Digital (WD) Corp./HGST followed a few months later with its version. The two drives are different subclasses of Ethernet drives, and are not even close to compatible. The Seagate Kinetic HDD uses a key/data addressing scheme clearly aimed at big data, while the WD product has a full Linux server running on the drive..."

"Meanwhile, Foxxcon and others may now in the hunt to purchase a majority share of Toshiba's memory business...

Toshiba has begun shipping samples of its third-generation 3D NAND flash chip technology, which stacks 64 layers of flash cells and has 65% greater capacity than the previous generation technology, which used 48 layers.

'This increases memory capacity per silicon wafer and leads to a reduction of cost-per-bit,' Toshiba said in a statement..."

"Research and advisory firm Aite Group is preparing to release a detailed comparison of what it deems the 'Top 10' distributed ledger platforms suited for securities settlement.

After eight months of research, including lengthy interviews with each of the platforms included, the report's author Javier Paz has crafted a side-by-side analysis complete with defining characteristics, ranging from the project's consensus mechanism to business model.

At the end of the 80-page report, Paz draws a series of conclusions for sectors including regulators and cloud providers.

But, Paz reserves his sternest conclusion for financial technology vendors not yet dealing in distributed ledger, or as he calls it, elsewhere in the report, 'chaintech'..."

"What a comeback. The digital currency that so often has been proclaimed dead, has risen from around $163 just two years ago, to now breach the all-time high on the average price weighed index...

Few thought this will happen. Mired in controversy regarding transaction backlogs - a Champaign problem some say, we have too many users, how do we make space for more in a way physical resources allow - challenged too by new cool kids such as ethereum, disparaged by the more stiff upper lips who kept proclaiming blockchain, but not bitcoin - the digital currency marches, unperturbed, undeterred, proving, once more, all wrong..."

"On February 22 the transaction queue for the Bitcoin network, otherwise known as the mempool, reached its all-time-high. During peak hours of the day, over 100,000 transactions were unconfirmed, and many people were once again experiencing significant delays...

Bitcoin.com previously reported that fees have increased by over 1200 percent in the past two years. At present fees being recorded for high priority transactions have been averaging 0.40-0.75 cents per transaction. Alongside this, the network is trying to process 3-4 txs/s, and over 70 btc worth of fees sits in the waiting. The last time the network suffered from significant backlog was on February 2 with over 900,000 btc waiting in the transaction queue..."

"Bitcoin was never really anonymous, and it seems the Danish police have caught on to that fact. According to reports by Danish newspaper Berlingske, law enforcement in the Scandinavian country has figured out how to apply blockchain analysis to hunt down and prosecute darknet market vendors..."

"The perspective is groundbreaking," Kim Aarenstrup, head of the National Cyber Crime Centre (NC3) of the Danish National Police, told Berlingske. "Where the investigation previously hit a dead end, we can now proceed."

"How do you get people to use your software? You make it convenient and you package it well...

A couple of weeks ago we attended one of London's more interesting developer events, Monki Gras. Run by the RedMonk group of analysts, Monki Gras focuses on the craft of software development, looking at not just how people do things, but also why, and how that reflects into and out of the wider world..."

Handing off an artifact, providing CI, moving towards continuous delivery, challenging teams to 'go faster with higher quality' can all fall under DevOps. We invited Michael Kren, DevOps manager at Jamf, to talk about the business benefits of DevOps and the tools they used to implement DevOps.

Rober blogs, "The born-digital 'unicorn' companies such as Etsy, Google and Netflix, are pioneers of modern DevOps, but BT leaders at companies of all ages, sizes, and types are now eagerly pursuing the same principles. The pressure for speed and quality is DevOps becoming pivotal for all organizations. For example, KeyBank are leveraging DevOps to quickly deliver business new customer capability using streamlined coordination between application development and operations. DevOps is allowing KeyBank to shorten delivery time by up to 85% and reduce defects by at least 30%. According to a 2016 State of DevOps report, high performers are twice as likely to exceed their organization's profitability, market share, and productivity goals..."

"Even though the DevOps movement has begun to take hold, plenty of misperceptions about DevOps still exist.

Is DevOps a set of absolute beliefs? A miracle cure for anything that ails an organization? Does it require particular software tools? Can only the unicorns of the world get it right?

Because it can be hard to pin down, some people mistrust the benefits of solid DevOps methodologies. And they forget that at its heart, DevOps is about responding more quickly to business and customer needs. It's about continual learning and improvement rather than an end state.

Valeriy blogs, "A lot of time passed since my previous post in this series. I was busy with work, participating in FOSDEM, blogging about profilers and sharing various lists of MySQL bugs. But I do not plan to stop writing about my usual weeks of doing support engineer's job. So, time for the next post in this series, based on my random notes taken during the week here and there.

This week started for me with checking recent MySQL bug reports (actually I do it every day). I noted recent report by Roel, Bug #85065. Unfortunately it was quickly marked as "Won't fix", and I tend to agree with Laurynas Biveinis that this was probably a wrong decision..."

Zeynep blogs, "In this Monday spotlight, we have a great video from OpenStack Day, Australia. Oracle Linux Product Manager Avi Miller talks about how to deploy Oracle Application and Database Environments with Murano in OpenStack..."

"SaaS providers are looking for smarter storage solutions to serve as the foundation of their application stack...

The attraction of SaaS model companies is their inherent ability to scale to meet customer demand. Across markets and geographies, modern SaaS business are building highly scalable software delivery infrastructure that delivers high levels of service and maintains cost efficiency over time. To meet these requirements, SaaS providers are looking for smarter storage solutions to serve as the foundation of their application stack..."

"Organizations adopting IaaS must update their approach to security by using the shared responsibility model...

Companies in industries from manufacturing to financial services to the public sector trust cloud providers with their critical data. The rapid growth of software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications such as Office 365 and Salesforce depended on trust. But the floodgates of SaaS adoption didn't open until IT security professionals became convinced that cloud providers could produce equivalent or better security compared to traditional software. Where challenges remain is on the enterprise side; Gartner predicts 95% of cloud security incidents will be the customer's fault..."

"'Shadow IT' refers to the too-common practice whereby managers select and deploy cloud services without the consent or even the knowledge of the IT department. These services act as extensions of the corporation but are steered entirely by groups that lack the knowledge or process to ensure they follow necessary guidelines, introducing security, compliance, and brand risk throughout the enterprise. Gartner predicts that by 2020, one-third of security breaches will come in through shadow IT services.

ValiMail CEO Alex Garcia-Tobar provides a step-by-step process for discovering shadow IT services and bringing them back under control..."

"While the majority of professionals feel that
it's important for companies to integrate quality
assurance, process management and other key
support functions to achieve strategic goals,
relatively few said that their organization is
actually doing that, according to a recent survey
from APQC. The accompanying '2017 Process and
Performance Management Priorities and Challenges'
report reveals that these and other shortcomings
are keeping companies from establishing an
impactful 'performance culture.' Among other
suggestions from survey respondents: Corporate
leaders must ensure that process management
efforts are aligned with goals. They should
measure project success based on business results.
They need to better engage employees through this
'change journey'...

"Our ninth annual IT Priorities Survey indicates data centers will address upgrades and infrastructure improvements and take on new and emerging technologies...

IT shops are poised to handle the challenges of modern data centers head-on, but aren't ignoring some of the not-so-sexy tasks that keep those data centers running. The latest incarnation of TechTarget's IT Priorities Survey indicates a shifting -- sometimes subtle, sometimes rather dramatic -- of focus to newer techs and applications such as internet of things, IT automation, big data analysis and software-defined infrastructure..."

"A change is as good as rest - how many CIOs and IT managers would agree? They really are at the forefront of the rapidly evolving technology that's at the heart of nearly every business and organisation...

On top of CIO dilemmas around whether to opt for public or private cloud, software defined storage or hardware, they're also managing infrastructure for an increasingly flexible workforce - one that can work any time of day or night, from anywhere and on any device..."

"The 16th annual State of the CIO report shows that the life of the dual-role CIO is both more challenging and more rewarding. Get used to the new reality...

Any CIO worth his or her C-suite executive office space knows that the job is more complex than ever. Moving apps and workloads to the cloud, ensuring legacy software can talk to off-premises apps, and keeping networks and systems secure remain core functional tasks of the CIO role. At the same time, boards of directors, CEOs and business colleagues are turning to the CIO to lead digital transformations, win customers and drive revenue..."

"US companies that don't have a presence in Europe still have to be sure that they comply with the EU's privacy laws regarding personally identifiable data.

The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is now law, with full compliance mandated by May 2018. As the far-reaching impact of the GDPR sinks in, a recent Vanson Bourne survey of CIOs shows headaches ahead for many companies, including those based in the US.

That's because any US company with European customers in its database must fully comply or face big fines. The survey, commissioned by Compuware, showed 52 percent of large U.S. companies have such personal information. Data management and compliance professionals need to mobilize now because, given the scope of the changes necessary, May 2018 isn't really that far off..."

"People have been estimating the costs of data breaches for years. But now, thanks to a renegotiated Yahoo/Verizon deal, we finally have a real number. And it's HUGE!...

Everyone knows corporate data breaches can be expensive, but does anyone really know exactly how expensive? Recent estimates for the average cost have landed all over the map, ranging from $4 million to $7 million. But when it comes to the top end of the scale, those appraisals turn out to be laughably small..."

The South Florida Technology Alliance (SFTA) Invites You To Join Us For A "Private Room" Social Event At The Funky Buddha (Oakland Park)

Non-members who register for this event will be given the opportunity to become a member for $100 instead of the normal $200!

Studies have shown that I.T. Professionals value networking above all other activities when attending local and regional events. This trend is supported by recent ITPalooza survey results where we asked respondents the main reason for attending. An overwhelming 71% responded that they attend for the networking opportunities!

Have some food and a drink while networking with peers. Hear about new products and solutions from sponsors. Choose to spend more time with sponsors or chat with colleagues.

"Mobile 5G should be finalized in November, then they go and make the actual tech...

The total download capacity for a single 5G cell must be at least 20Gbps, the International Telcommunication Union (ITU) has decided. In contrast, the peak data rate for current LTE cells is about 1Gbps. The incoming 5G standard must also support up to 1 million connected devices per square kilometre, and the standard will require carriers to have at least 100MHz of free spectrum, scaling up to 1GHz where feasible..."

"The blitz is on for 5G technology, the blazingly fast, next-gen wireless service that promises to take cell phones, internet of things, video conferencing, self-driving cars and even surgery where they've never been before.

A few days ago, Verizon said it will deliver '5G pre-commercial services' to customers in 11 cities in the first half of the year -- 'another important step,' said the carrier, in commercializing gigabit broadband service via a wireless 5G connection..."

We meet in Palm Beach Gardens on the 1st Wednesday of each month. Come out and connect with other professionals in your industry! vBeers is a great event meant to promote growth of the IT industry here in South Florida.

Please share this invitation with your IT colleagues and encourage them to attend!

These informal networking/social events provide a relaxed environment to meet with other hands-on IT professionals and promote the growth of IT in South Florida.

Feel free to arrive and depart at your convenience. People start gathering around 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM and most people leave by 8:30 or 9:00 PM.

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) said it would begin offering testing and standards conformance services 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T Ethernet products.

The broad testing services safeguard that Ethernet products and services are interoperable and will help customers boost network speed up to five times without requiring cabling infrastructure changes..."

"In this video, Tony Fortunato demonstrates how to take some basic latency measurements.

I was troubleshooting a network performance problem with a client while teaching a class and we got into a discussion of what is worse, packet delay or packet loss. As a consultant, I argued the standard 'it depends.' Really, it does depend on many factors, including network latency and application or protocol behavior.

I suggested taking some basic network latency measurements with a network emulator and see what the impact is. Some complained this would take too long, but I said it would easily take less than an hour to figure out..."

Can software-defined WAN replace your edge router? This question becomes more prominent as SD-WAN growth continues to rise. The answer is more complex than one might think. The reason for this complexity resides in how one defines an edge router -- and how it differs from software-defined networking, or SDN, as a whole..."

"The movie 'Die Hard' has a thing or two to teach us about the pitfalls of the Internet of Things.

Much has already been written about the threat that Internet of Things (IoT) devices pose to the larger Internet. Think about the October 2016 Mirai botnet attacks and the discussions since then. But this column isn't about that. It's about the specific threat that Internet-connected devices pose to an enterprise network, and how we can intelligently apply network architecture to achieve security aims..."

"Two new versions of LTE bring low-power networks into the spotlight...

One of the many whiz-bang features promised in 5G is a new way of connecting millions of small, low-powered IoT devices. But there's no need to wait: Two forms of LTE tuned for IoT have entered a market that's already heating up with rapidly expanding specialist networks.

The new standards, LTE-M and NB-IoT, were completed last year and will share the spotlight at Mobile World Congress next week with an array of network miracles envisioned for the next generation of cellular, due for commercial launches in 2020..."

"The IoT, or the 'Internet of Things,' is quickly becoming a household term as everything from networked DVRs to smart fridges make their way into our homes.

IoT has numerous applications in the medical industry as well, appearing everywhere from patient devices all the way up to supply chain management for equipment and pharmaceuticals. IoT has the potential to change the medical industry from the ground up, though time has not yet determined if that change is going to be a positive or negative one.

"With next gen 'distributed consensus' algorithms that combine both security and performance, organizations can defend against DDoS attacks, even those that leverage IoT devices...

On October 21st, a new malware weapon called the Mirai botnet took down a huge portion of the Internet, by launching a DDoS attack on Dyn, a company that controls much of the Internet's domain name system (DNS) infrastructure. Affected sites included Twitter, the Guardian, Netflix, Reddit, CNN and many others in Europe and the US..."

"Biometrics can have many more applications beyond gaining entrance to a building...

Biometrics falls into the third category of security modalities: (1) what we have: e.g. key, RFID card or ID card; what we know: e.g. password, PIN, challenge/response answers like mother's maiden name or first pet; and what we are: e.g. biometrics, such as our fingerprint, face, iris, etc.

Many people are familiar with biometrics as a security measure at airports or police stations, where they often use a fingerprint as a form of identification, but there are many other uses outside of law enforcement. Biometrics, like any modality, is a not a solution to all problems, but is very effective as one of many layers to provide secure yet convenient authentication to complete a transaction..."

"Inxi is a powerful and remarkable command line-system information script designed for both console and IRC (Internet Relay Chat). It can be employed to instantly deduce user system configuration and hardware information, and also functions as a debugging, and forum technical support tool.

"2016 was a somewhat successful year for attackers and consequently a challenging year for defenders.

From the stolen email archives of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman to numerous reports of attacks on companies, hospitals, schools and others, cybersecurity has continued to expand into a major mainstream news topic. Google searches on 'cybersecurity' spiked to an all-time high during the year.

While high-profile breaches are not new news - the growing list of victims including Yahoo,Wendy's, the University of Central Florida and the Bangladesh Bank illustrate the continuing threat of cyber attacks - 2016 demonstrated that the threats are ongoing and can target every type of organization in every industry. No sector or group is immune.

Organizations around the world are now more aware of the risks and know they must take deliberate steps to address the threats. But how?..."

"If you're a small to midsized business and you wing it when it comes to network management and security then it's not a question of if you will have a disaster, it's merely a question of when. Why? Because malware, accidents and disasters are all waiting in the wings to pop out and make your life hell and cost you lots of money. Now I won't lie to you, getting insulated from the bad stuff isn't cheap, but if you think security and reliability is expensive, try fixing a disaster. Here are 12 steps that will, in the long run, make your business safer. Think you've got this covered? How many have you got in place?..."

"A new cybersecurity report from Nuix skipped the survey of recent breaches and instead went to the source -- asking 70 penetration testers at the DEFCON conference about their tactics, motivations and thoughts on the systems they target.

The Nuix Black Report 'illuminates the true nexus between attacker methodology and defensive posture,' Nuix Chief Information Security Officer Chris Pogue said in announcing the report's release. Among the more interesting findings:..."

"ISACA report finds that 55% of security jobs take three- to six months to fill, and under 25% of candidates are qualified for the jobs they apply for.

Sobering news on the cybersecurity hiring front: More than 20% of organizations get fewer than five applicants for an open security job and more than half of all positions (55%) take at least three months to fill with a qualified candidate.

Of those who do apply, fewer than 25% are actually qualified for the posted job, according to a new ISACA report released at last week's RSA Conference in San Francisco..."

"Organizations are struggling with a worsening cyber security skill shortage while facing rising threat levels, according to a new study by Crowd Research partners, and organization that produces peer-sourced market research reports.

A survey of more than 1,900 security professionals showed that more than half (54%) anticipate successful cyber attacks on their organizations in the next 12 months.

Heightening the alarm over all of this is the growing skills gap in IT security. A separate study from the Center for Cyber Safety and Education released last week says that gap will grow to as many as 1.8 million IT security workers by 2022. That is a 20 percent increase from the 1.5 million IT security worker shortfall that was predicted by the center in 2015..."

"Researchers at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel have found a way to hack into isolated 'air-gapped' computer's hard disk drives (HDDs) by aiming drones at the blinking LEDs found on most of the desktops, laptops and servers. On February 22, 2016, the team released a YouTube video showing the 'hack' in action.

'Air-gapped' computers are isolated - separated both logically and physically from public networks - ostensibly so that they cannot be hacked over the Internet or within company networks..."

"SIEM is a key technology in a company's security arsenal that should be considered an essential tool in defending against intrusions...

Recent studies are continually linking an organisation's lack of staffing and skills to its ability to fend off cyberattacks.

Market research firm Vanson Bourne interviewed 775 IT decision makers involved in cybersecurity within their organisations last year, and found one in three say the shortage makes them prime hacking targets, while one in four say it has led to reputational damage and the loss of proprietary data via cyberattack..."

"Understanding the differences between the tools that promise to ease your security workload...

During my recent trip to Tel Aviv to attend CyberTech 2017, I had a one-on-one conversation with Barak Klinghofer, co-founder and chief product officer of Hexadite. He gave me a preview of an educational presentation he was to give two weeks later at the RSA Conference. His insight is worth repeating for anyone looking to add automation tools to their security toolset.

As I saw at CyberTech, and I'm sure was the case at RSA, the hottest topics were security automation, automated incident response and security orchestration. These can be confusing terms, as every vendor describes them a little bit differently..."

"The proliferation of insecure devices in every facet of our lives will have consequences far beyond the digital realm...

Securitywise, the internet of things is going as badly as most computer security experts predicted. In fact, most vendors don't fully appreciate the potential threats IoT devices pose. Anything connected to the internet and running code can be taken over for malicious purposes. Given the accelerating proliferation of internet-connected devices, we could be hurtling toward catastrophe. Personal security cameras, for example, are being used to conduct the largest denial-of-service attacks the world has ever seen, not to mention allowing strangers to spy on the very people the cameras are supposed to protect..."

"Security certifications aren't mandatory for all industry experts, but they can make a difference in applying for new roles. (ISC)2 CEO David Shearer says they're a 'must-have' when looking at candidates on paper.

'Statistically, someone who goes through the formal [certification] process tends to be a candidate with more educational experience,' he says, and certifications give professionals the 'deep dive' expertise they need to drive their careers..."

"An important recruiting metric, time to fill is the number of days between the day a job requisition is approved until the day an offer is accepted by the candidate.

SHRM's latest recruitment survey reports the average time to fill is 41 days. But with hiring volume increasing this year and top candidates staying on the job market for only 10 days, recruiting teams are under pressure to reduce their time to fill.

iCIMS' data breaks down the time spent on each step of the hiring process:..."

"If you're just starting your career as an IT professional and you're looking for an entry-level job, you should know a few things. First, you're entering a market with a lot going for you, in terms of the demand for good IT talent. Second, overpricing yourself will likely backfire on you and prolong your job search indefinitely, regardless of how high the demand is for your skills. And third, underpricing yourself can handicap your salary trajectory for years..."

"One word that will never help your cause is 'sorry.' Here are eight others...

You're 96% sure that you're ready to schedule a meeting with your boss to ask for a raise. Or perhaps you're nearing the end of the job interview process and an offer is in sight. However, if you're like me, you have definitely put your foot in your mouth a time or two saying the wrong thing at the absolute worst moment. Doh!

Don't mess up. Don't mess up. No matter how many times you rehearse what to say, there's always that risk of fumbling right at the five-yard line. Instead of panicking, get prepared..."

"Looking to get ahead in cybersecurity? Here are four areas to keep in mind as you make a five-year career plan...

The economics of supply and demand shape today's cybersecurity job market. Each year, US employers post more than 120,000 openings for information security analysts and roughly one-third go unfilled. Hiring managers are bracing for a continuation of this trend, with demand for cybersecurity professionals expected to grow steadily through 2018..."

"Interest and adoption of cloud-based databases is ramping up as more companies see the value of moving from traditional on-premise IT infrastructures to off-premise cloud services like Amazon (AWS), Microsoft Azure and many others.

Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) offers high availability, multi-tenancy and the ability to scale as demand grows without the high cost of buying new hardware and related maintenance costs. The game company Zynga, for example, said a cloud service (in this case, Amazon's Aurora database) 'has delivered the necessary performance without any of the operational overhead of running MySQL.'..."

"Between the weekly reports on plant performance, supplier KPIs and inventory levels, more data may be the last thing supply chain managers want to crunch.

Yet every day, more data keeps coming: the world creates 2.5 exabytes of it every day (that's 1 billion gigabytes), according to IBM. But it wasn't always this way. According to IBM's calculations, 90% of the world's data was created in the past two years alone, and reports abound on how businesses are using it to save millions of dollars and improve efficiency by double digits in ways previously never conceived..."

"Here are data management best practices and tools that help clear the clutter...

I remember a few years ago parsing through all the files on a NAS box. I was amazed at all the duplicate files, but a bit more investigation revealed that we had a mix of near duplicates in with the genuine replicas. All had the same name, so it was hard to tell the valid files from the trash. I asked around and the responses I got were mostly along the lines of, 'Why are we keeping that? No one uses it!'..."

"Enough is enough--your big data might actually be getting too clean. Find out why it can be useful to keep bad, garbage data...

When you got a job as a data scientist, I bet you didn't imagine you'd spend so much time cleaning up bad data. Don't feel badly - none of us did.

When data science rolled on the scene, many of us who were already in the data warehousing and business intelligence fields thought we'd entered a new era where sophisticated algorithms and artificial intelligence was the order of the day. To a certain extent that's where we went, but we were never fortunate enough to get rid of that grimy aspect of the job: data cleansing..."

"Contrary to what the smartphone and laptop people like to think, the desktop PC is far from dead - in the enterprise or outside it. 'The State of the Modern Web,' a global survey recently conducted by Dimensional Research, found that the desktop remains the most critical platform for business applications. This is due in part to the massive explosion in the complexity and volume of data, which is driving increased demand for data visualization techniques as users seek to make more informed strategic and operational decisions.

A knowledge worker simply cannot take full advantage of data visualization methods on a smartphone or small notebook PC; it's a fact of professional life. Art Landro, CEO of web app development platform provider Sencha, which sponsored the survey, believes that the desktop will be around for another 30-plus years. In this eWEEK slide show, using industry information from the survey, we offer eight reasons why the desktop PC will remain a major tool in business for at least another generation..."

"There is a strange side-effect to the Bring Your Own Device initiative, and one that's slowing it down. Apparently, many employees refrain from bringing their own devices to work from the fear of being judged.

No, not because their devices are old or slow, but because they fear others will think they're using them for personal instead of professional reasons.

Yes, that's a real fear, and it's quite prevalent. According to Nudge Rewards just 40 per cent of employees felt trust was not an issue when using BYOD..."

"Google made major waves in the cryptography world, announcing a public collision in the SHA-1 algorithm. It's a deathblow to what was once one of the most popular algorithms in cryptography, and a crisis for anyone still using the function. The good news is, almost no one is still using SHA-1, so you don't need to rush out and install any patches. But today's announcement is still a major power play from Google, with real implications for web security overall.

Like most cryptography, it can get a little complicated, so it's probably best to start from the very beginning..."

"When it comes to messaging securely, Signal is the best available. It's end-to-end encryption protocol is highly-regarded in the security industry. Plus it's design and feature set make it easy to send text messages and make calls with individuals or groups. Why not use the best?..."

"VPNs have a vital role to play in corporate privacy. But care is needed in choosing the right VPN for the job...

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) can trace their roots back 20 years or so, pioneered by technology companies like Microsoft and Cisco to help big businesses securely share information across different locations.But it's only with the increase in remote working and, more recently, the mobile workforce, the cloud and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) that VPNs have become an essential tool for businesses to provide private and secure access to network resources..."

"Converged and hyper-converged systems simplify an IT environment and boost performance. Here's how to decide if they are right for your business's data center...

Converged infrastructure is the grouping together of aspects of a technology platform in a single, optimized system. Among other benefits, this type of architecture delivers a higher level of performance. But what does this mean to an organization, and when should converged infrastructure technologies be put into action?..."

"Knowing that the jump to exascale will require novel architectural approaches capable of delivering dramatic efficiency and performance gains, researchers around the world are hard at work on next-generation HPC systems.

In Europe, the DEEP project has successfully built a next-generation heterogeneous architecture based on an innovative 'cluster-booster' approach. The new architecture can dynamically assign individual code parts in a simulation to different hardware components based on which component can deliver the highest computational efficiency. It also provides a foundation for a modular type of supercomputing where a variety of top-level system components, such as a memory module or a data analytics module for example, could be swapped in and out based on workload characteristics..."

"In this video from the 2017 HPC Advisory Council Stanford Conference, Subhasish Mitra from Stanford presents: Beyond the Moore's Law Cliff: The Next 1000X.

Sorry, but the slides are not being shown at the request of the speaker.
Professor Subhasish Mitra directs the Robust Systems Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Department of Computer Science of Stanford University, where he is the Chambers Faculty Scholar of Engineering. Prior to joining Stanford, he was a Principal Engineer at Intel Corporation. He received Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University..."

Nexenta, the global leader in Open Source-driven Software-Defined Storage announced that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Don Lopes, Vice President, Marketing & Channels at Nexenta to its prestigious list of 2017 Channel Chiefs. The executives on this annual list represent top leaders in the IT channel who excel at driving growth and revenue in their organizations through channel partners.

Channel Chief honorees are selected by CRN's editorial staff on the basis of their professional achievements, standing in the industry, dedication to the channel partner community and strategies for driving future growth and innovation. Each of the 2017 Channel Chiefs has demonstrated loyalty and ongoing support for the IT channel by consistently promoting, defending and executing outstanding channel partner programs.

According to a newly released IDC study, organizations around the world are expected to triple the adoption of modern, automated networks over the next two years. To accelerate the journey to these digital-ready networks, Cisco is introducing new technologies that allow customers to virtualize and secure their networks.

Today, businesses demand a lot from their networks. However, the vast majority of today's networks were only designed to provide fast, reliable connectivity. These legacy networks are struggling to combat sophisticated cyber-threats, or keep up with the requirements of today's mobile workforce and their use of IoT devices and new cloud applications. A new approach is required. With its Digital Network Architecture (DNA), Cisco is ushering in a new era of networking that rips up the playbook for how companies build and manage network infrastructure.

As service providers around the globe explore paths to cloud, IoT and 5G, Cisco is focused on building solutions that offer programmability, automation and virtualization to simplify operations and lower their total cost of ownership (TCO).

With more than 73 million mobile customers in Japan, NTT DOCOMO, INC., is managing intense demands on its core network to provide communication services to its subscribers.

DOCOMO deployed a network functions virtualization (NFV) system last year, but due to the complexity and time-consuming operations with network device provisioning, it has taken the initiative to fully improve its business efficiency by applying 'automation' to various operations.

Campofrio Food Group, the leading international producer of branded processed meats, headquartered in Madrid, Spain, has cut the ribbon on a brand-new plant that boasts the latest in digital technology.

With a gross surface area expanding 99,000 square meters and an estimated production of 101,400 tons a year, the 'New Bureba' plant is located in Burgos, in Northern Spain. It replaces the previous facilities, destroyed by a fire in November 2014, but is far from a standard rebuild, incorporating the industrial sector's very latest innovations.

From the beginning of the design process, Campofrio seized the opportunity to create a 'smart' factory that connects machines, devices, sensors and people in real-time. The company selected Cisco Connected Factory solution to create a 'Factory 4.0' that would enable to manage and optimize its business processes and make well-informed decisions.

Cisco takes on security bottlenecks, with the introduction of the Cisco Firepower 2100 Series Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW). The 2100 series is designed for businesses that perform high volumes of sensitive transactions, such as banking and retail, and supports their need to maintain uptime and protect critical business functions and data. The series aims to end the industry tug of war between performance and protection - with incorporation of a new scalable architecture and improvements of up to 200 percent greater throughput to eliminate bottlenecks - from the Internet edge to the data center.

Cisco also is simplifying management of business' security portfolios from device to the cloud with productivity and threat defense enhancements to tools that match their needs. These include Cisco Firepower Device Manager for on-box requirements, Cisco Firepower Management Center for centralized security management needs, and Cisco Defense Orchestrator for cloud-based management.

Dell announced the technology industry's first shipment of ocean plastics packaging, the result of an innovative, commercial-scale pilot program. Dell recycled plastics collected from waterways and beaches for use in the new packaging tray for its Dell XPS 13 2-in-1, building on Dell's broader sustainable supply chain strategy. In 2017, its ocean plastics pilot will keep 16,000 pounds of plastic from entering the ocean.

Dell will transition its award-winning XPS 13 2-in-1 to ocean plastics packaging beginning April 30, 2017. The company also will include educational information on its packaging to raise global awareness and action on ocean ecosystem health solutions, an area of shared interest between Dell, its Social Good Advocate, Adrian Grenier and the Lonely Whale Foundation.

To reinforce its commitment to help people, companies and countries within Latin America to continue their journey towards digital transformation, Microsoft is launching a Cybersecurity Engagement Center in Mexico, part of a global initiative to present the company's unique perspective on matters of IT security, which is not only the result of several decades of experience in the development and ongoing improvement of software, but also of the operation of one of the industry's most robust and trustworthy cloud computing platforms.

Microsoft Corp. and Flipkart, India's leading marketplace, announced a strategic partnership to provide consumers in India with the best online shopping service. As a first step in the broad collaboration between the two companies, Flipkart will adopt Microsoft Azure as its exclusive public cloud platform. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Flipkart Group CEO and co-founder Binny Bansal announced the news at an event in Bangalore.

"At Microsoft, we aim to empower every Indian and every Indian organization with technology, and key to this is forging strategic partnerships with innovative companies like Flipkart," Nadella said. "Combining Microsoft's cloud platform and AI capabilities with Flipkart's existing services and data assets will enable Flipkart to accelerate its digital transformation in e-commerce and deliver new customer experiences."

At the 2017 Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Orlando, IBM introduced expanded capabilities for the Watson Platform for Health Cloud and a specialized Watson Health Consulting Services unit dedicated to helping clients and partners across the healthcare ecosystem capture the business opportunity of cognitive computing in healthcare.

To date, the adoption of cloud in the healthcare industry has been a slow process due to concerns around security, regulatory and compliance. Cloud providers may offer the raw materials, but then customers must assemble and then validate materials themselves. Global adoption for cloud services in healthcare are expected to grow from $3.73 billion in 2015 to nearly $10 billion by 2020, according to MarketsandMarkets. The promise of cloud and cognitive capabilities has become a leading discussion in every IT strategy meeting as a platform for innovation in the future of healthcare delivery.

Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the creation of Utopus Insights, Inc., based in Valhalla, NY. Utopus Insights is a new company that will strive to be a leading provider of the next generation of intelligent energy solutions.

VELCO, an electric transmission company owned by in-state electric distribution companies, will be an investor and strategic partner of Utopus Insights.

Under an agreement between VELCO and IBM Research, IBM Research's Smarter Energy team, as well as related intellectual property and technology, will become part of Utopus Insights. IBM Fellow, Dr. Chandu Visweswariah, has been named President and CEO of Utopus Insights, which will launch in the first quarter of 2017.

IBM announced a new multi-year services agreement with Chubb, the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company, to consolidate and integrate the company's IT infrastructure following ACE Limited's January 2016 acquisition of The Chubb Corporation.

Chubb's goals for its IT infrastructure include enhancing productivity and adopting a more agile environment securely designed to further enhance the user experience, deploy services to its customers faster, increase speed to market, and achieve greater overall cost efficiency.

IBM and the Avamere Family of Companies (Avamere Health Services, Infinity Rehab, Signature Hospice, Home Health, Home Care) announced a six-month research study that will apply the power of IBM cognitive computing to help caregivers improve eldercare at senior living and health centers. By analyzing data streaming from sensors in senior living facilities, Avamere hopes to gain insights into physical and environmental conditions, and obtain deeper learnings into the factors that affect 30-day hospital readmission rates in patients.

Northern Trust, in collaboration with IBM and other key stakeholders, has launched the first commercial deployment of blockchain technology for the private equity market.

While private equity returns can be attractive, the infrastructure supporting private equity has seen little innovation in recent years at a time when investors are seeking greater transparency, security and efficiency.

To address this need, Northern Trust and IBM built a security-rich blockchain, or distributed ledger solution, based on the Hyperledger Fabric. It is available for use for managing the administration of a private equity fund managed by Unigestion, a Geneva, Switzerland-based asset manager with $20 billion in assets under management.

At the 2017 Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Orlando, IBM introduced expanded capabilities for the Watson Platform for Health Cloud and a specialized Watson Health Consulting Services unit dedicated to helping clients and partners across the healthcare ecosystem capture the business opportunity of cognitive computing in healthcare.

To date, the adoption of cloud in the healthcare industry has been a slow process due to concerns around security, regulatory and compliance. Cloud providers may offer the raw materials, but then customers must assemble and then validate materials themselves. Global adoption for cloud services in healthcare are expected to grow from $3.73 billion in 2015 to nearly $10 billion by 2020, according to MarketsandMarkets. The promise of cloud and cognitive capabilities has become a leading discussion in every IT strategy meeting as a platform for innovation in the future of healthcare delivery.

IBM Watson Health and the Central New York Care Collaborative (CNYCC) announced an agreement to create a cognitive population health platform intended to connect more than 2,000 healthcare and community based providers across six counties in Central New York. The platform will be designed to help improve health for residents across the region, with the goal to reduce costs in the Medicaid system by decreasing the amount of avoidable emergency department visits and hospital readmissions by 25 percent over the course of the program. The population health platform will integrate IBM Watson Care Manager with broader Watson Health offerings and run on the Watson Health Cloud.

Atrius Health and IBM Watson Health entered into an agreement to develop a cloud based service designed to improve the physician-patient experience. By providing a holistic view of the multiple influences on an individual's health, including social determinants, Watson Cognitive Insights could be designed to support shared decision making between physicians and patients. Atrius Health is an innovative nonprofit healthcare organization with 875 physicians caring for 675,000 patients in eastern Massachusetts.

According to a paper published by Health Affairs, shared decision making, whereby physicians and their patients make healthcare decisions together using the best clinical evidence available, has been linked to numerous benefits for patients, clinicians, and the health care system...

IBM Research has announced new research developments in IBM Watson's ability to detect abnormalities of the eye's retina. The Melbourne based IBM researchers have trained a research version of Watson to recognize abnormalities in retina images, which could in the future offer doctors greater insights and speed in their early identification of patients who may be at risk of eye diseases - such as glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness in the developed world.

The research began in 2015 and the latest work has focused on streamlining some of the manual processes experienced by doctors today. This includes distinguishing between left and right eye images, evaluating the quality of retina scans, as well as ranking possible indicators of glaucoma. Glaucoma has been named 'the silent thief of sight' as many patients remain undiagnosed until irreversible vision loss occurs. Glaucoma can be treated but early detection is critical, with doctors currently relying on regular eye examination screening programs.

Fujitsu announced that it has been named to FORTUNE Magazine's 2017 list of "World's Most Admired Companies." This year 323 companies were selected for the list of "World's Most Admired Companies," including 15 companies from Japan. Fujitsu ranked highly in such areas as Global Competitiveness and Financial Soundness, making this the fifth consecutive year it has been selected.

Conducted through a partnership between Fortune Magazine and Korn Ferry Hay Group(1), the annually published "World's Most Admired Companies" list is determined based on a survey of 3,800 executives and directors at global companies and securities analysts. Companies that receive the highest scores from both within and outside their respective industries are ranked in nine categories, including Innovation, Global Competitiveness, and Financial Soundness.

Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NYSE: LVLT) announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Level 3 Financing, Inc., has successfully completed the marketing of the refinancing of all of its outstanding $4,610,500,000 senior secured term loans through the issuance of a new Tranche B 2024 Term Loan in the amount of $4,610,500,000. The terms loans being refinanced are the Tranche B-III 2019 Term Loan, the Tranche B 2020 Term Loan and the Tranche B-II 2022 Term Loan.

First quarter net revenue of $11.4 billion was down 10% from the prior-year period and down 4% when adjusted for divestitures and currency.

First quarter GAAP diluted net earnings per share (EPS) was $0.16, up from $0.15 in the prior-year period, and above its previously provided outlook of $0.03 to $0.07. First quarter non-GAAP diluted net EPS was $0.45, up from $0.41 in the prior-year period, and near the high end of its previously provided outlook of $0.42 to $0.46. First quarter non-GAAP net earnings and non-GAAP diluted net EPS exclude after-tax costs of $505 million and $0.29 per diluted share, respectively, related to separation costs, restructuring charges, amortization of intangible assets, acquisition and other related charges, an adjustment to earnings from equity interests, defined benefit plan settlement and remeasurement charges and tax indemnification adjustments.

Consistent with HPE's multi-cloud, multi-stack strategy and broader open source software commitment, HPE is collaborating with Red Hat to accelerate OpenStack adoption by CSPs worldwide, offering customers increased choice through multiple commercial distributions, including both HPE Helion OpenStack Carrier Grade and Red Hat OpenStack Platform. Red Hat is an open source leader, using an 'upstream first' approach to the development of its products, including Red Hat OpenStack Platform. As a result, Red Hat OpenStack Platform offers a fully open source foundation for NFV deployments.

Brocade reported financial results for its first fiscal quarter ended January 28, 2017. Brocade reported first quarter revenue of $581 million, up 1% year-over-year and down 12% quarter-over-quarter. The Company reported a GAAP loss per share of $0.01, down from diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.23 and $0.16 in Q1 2016 and Q4 2016, respectively. Non-GAAP diluted EPS was $0.16 for Q1 2017, down from non-GAAP diluted EPS of $0.29 and $0.33 in Q1 2016 and Q4 2016, respectively. The year-over-year decline in both GAAP and non-GAAP diluted EPS primarily reflects lower SAN revenue and lower IP Networking wired switch and router revenue, offset by the added revenue from the Ruckus Wireless acquisition.

ARRIS INTERNATIONAL PLC and Broadcom Limited jointly announced that they have entered into an agreement for ARRIS to acquire Brocade Communication Systems Inc.'s Ruckus Wireless and ICX Switch business for cash consideration of $800 million, plus the additional cost of unvested employee stock awards, following the closing of Broadcom's acquisition of Brocade. ARRIS expects the acquisition to be accretive to its Non-GAAP earnings per share in the first 12 months.

Comcast Business announced that Texas Southern University (TSU) in Houston is using its high-performance Ethernet services to make online learning a reality; help improve campus-wide communications; and strengthen network access, mobile device management and security.

TSU is home to approximately 1,400 faculty and staff, and 9,000 students. The historic institution offers more than 100 undergraduate and graduate programs, along with 80-plus student organizations. To support bandwidth demands from this growing population and to provide advanced technology services that aid in students' education, TSU's newly appointed president, Dr. Austin A. Lane, knew he needed to upgrade the existing IT infrastructure.

"NetApp SolidFire supports our mission to always display respect for people, time, and data," said Craig McElroy, CTO and cofounder of Contegix. "Guaranteeing performance and eliminating noisy neighbors respect our customers as people. Eliminating delays in infrastructure respects their time. The ability to control how many gigs or terabytes are procured for a client is respect for data. NetApp SolidFire enabled us to get to a unified storage platform where we can focus on delivering high-value customer business outcomes. Every interaction at that level is a deposit in the trust bank."

Aerohive Networks (NYSE:HIVE), the fastest growing enterprise Wi-Fi vendor, announced that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Vice President of Global Channels, Michael O'Brien, to its prestigious list of 2017 Channel Chiefs.

CRN Channel Chiefs recognizes the top leaders in the IT channel who excel at driving growth and revenue in their organizations through channel partners.

Channel Chief honorees are selected by CRN's editorial staff based on their professional achievements, standing in the industry, dedication to the channel partner community and strategies for driving future growth and innovation. Each of the 2017 Channel Chiefs has demonstrated loyalty and ongoing support for the IT channel by consistently promoting, defending and executing outstanding channel partner programs.

Centrify, the leader in securing hybrid enterprises through the power of identity services, today announced that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Nathan Adams, Centrify's director of global channels, to its prestigious list of 2017 Channel Chiefs. The executives on this annual list represent top leaders in the IT channel who excel at driving growth and revenue in their organizations through channel partners.

Channel Chief honorees are selected by CRN's editorial staff on the basis of their professional achievements, standing in the industry, dedication to the channel partner community and strategies for driving future growth and innovation. Each of the 2017 Channel Chiefs has demonstrated loyalty and ongoing support for the IT channel by consistently promoting, defending and executing outstanding channel partner programs.

Businesses today are faced with the challenges of ensuring their IT systems are more agile and responsive to changing digital economy. How companies securely manage document workflows and the sharing of data, including confidential intellectual property, across globally-dispersed teams becomes more and more critical. Daimler AG, one of the largest producers of premium cars, was seeking an improved, flexible and secure solution to exchange large files for its 280,000 employee global workforce. Citrix ShareFile met these requirements.

ShareFile provides a solution that can scale to the company's needs to reach all of its 280,000 employees whereever they are, while giving them the ability to maintain a local in-country control plane for security and compliance. By adopting ShareFile, the company will be able to reduce the support required for legacy systems, reduce the risk of data loss by sharing through email, and create a self-service tool that gives employees, and in many cases external vendors, the ability to securely collaborate on files across their global workforce.

Juniper Networks, an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure networks, kicked off its first software-defined networking (SDN) and network automation "Throwdown" workshop and competition at its Sunnyvale headquarters. As part of Juniper's ongoing OpenLab Silicon Valley program, the event provides college-student participants with hands-on education and hacking experience through workshop lectures and training focused on the emerging SDN technology revolution.

Juniper Networks, an industry leader in automated, scalable and secure networks, has collaborated with Sony Professional Solutions Europe to deliver its switching technology to support Sony's IP Live production solution. This enables broadcasters to capture and distribute live coverage of major sporting, cultural and political events globally. By leveraging Internet Protocol (IP) networks, IP Live is designed to solve the challenge of transporting massive volumes of rich-content data in real-time between outside broadcast locations and production studios in a cost-effective and reliable manner. Juniper's open, interoperable technology aligns with Sony's requirement to tailor open solutions to the exact needs of each customer.

Nutanix, a leader in enterprise cloud computing, announced an application virtualization project to achieve Internet Segregation for Sapporo City, the fifth largest population in Japan, and the largest city on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.

As part of the local government initiative driven by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Sapporo City is tasked to strengthen its information security by carrying out an internet segregation; a mechanism that prevents information leakage by separating the network connected to the internet from other business networks such as LGWAN (Integrated Administrative Network). For example, the city can choose to segregate secure email systems from other activities such as Internet browsing. As a result, a project was launched with Nutanix to virtualize specific applications and separate them from the existing environment.

Nutanix announced the ongoing success of healthcare providers streamlining their IT infrastructure with the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform. Using Nutanix solutions, healthcare providers can gain the flexibility and management simplicity typical of public cloud infrastructure with the security and control they need at significant cost savings. Through a more streamlined datacenter infrastructure, these organizations can support new technology innovations and initiatives which can increase service levels for those who really matter - healthcare practitioners and their patients.